


Ghost Poems

by meredyd



Category: Ghost Quartet - Malloy, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 09:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12603168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meredyd/pseuds/meredyd
Summary: Rose is the same as anyone else.





	Ghost Poems

**I.**  
Rose Red is seven and she runs away from her house in the woods. There are two little girls at the edge of the salt marsh skimming stones into the water. One of them has her copper-colored hair, the hair Rose Red hates and was named for; she has never seen it on another person. She throws a stone in the water. It ripples, becomes clear and exposed. The other girl, dark-haired, beautiful in a way that Rose Red has never particularly cared to be, smiles at her. It is beatific.

They spend the afternoon at swimming and picking flowers, throwing stones, holding hands and telling jokes that none of them say out loud. When Rose Red is sticky and tired and sure she’s had enough of running away from home she tells Pearl about them.

“That’s nonsense,” says Pearl, who hasn’t played with Rose at the marsh since beginning to stare at boys at the marketplace. “You didn’t see anyone.”

And maybe she hadn’t, but their loss cuts another hole in her all the same.

 **II.**  
“Do you miss her?” she asks, in the haze of half-remembering. Pierre rocks back and forth as they dance, a child afraid to let go for what will come afterwards. Does he miss her? Of course he does. The question is cruel.

This time, did Natasha live?

There is a comfort in being held like someone dear, and she can’t meet the tenderness in his eyes she hasn’t earned. Whoever Sonya is, is sure, more than sure, that here they aren’t yet friends.

The house around them, the floorboards, the walls, the the doors all howling with the wind. 

**III.**  
He has bargained for things before, with himself, with God, with the bottom of a bottle and with whatever lies beyond both of those things that there isn’t yet words for - however far out into the universe.

Pierre has never bargained with a bear, and is distincly aware that it should be more unusual.

 **IV.**  
When she is consumed by deep prayer, Princess Mary has seen things that used to be, or will be, or have already been. A circle of perfect calm open in the light of her soul for anything to land in. Today she isn’t alone in the chapel.

“You need help finding something,” says Mary, rising. Correcting herself, “Someone.”

Starchild shakes her head, blinks, looks as if she’s waking up from a dream. Even in the darkness, Mary never loses sight of her - she emits a glow in a million tiny points like a candle finally sparking. Her feet don’t seem to touch the ground.

“I guess, I’m not sure - I don’t know.”

“You’re lost,” says Mary. “What can I do to help you?”

The starchild looks so very young, then. She isn’t, it is impossible to tell what age she is. Still, Mary thinks of the children she prays for, the children who are not yet hers and who may never be but who she sometimes lets rest warm in her heart like a secret.

“Read me a story,” Starchild demands.

 **V.**  
The Astronomer travels an unfamiliar boulevard at night, in the snow. He can’t identify the celestial bodies around him. The sky is too clear, the stars are too close. Even from his treehouse, they were never this close, heavy with an expectation that he care for them, know more about them than he has always claimed to know. What do they matter to him, then? What does it matter if something, if someone, doesn’t give up their secrets? What value could it possibly have? He looks down, and down, and down. 

**VI.**  
It rains for three days and nights, while Rose walks the city with her brand new camera. She takes pictures of buildings, and people and animals, and pictures of Pearl. Behind in the counter in the shop, carefully putting cash away in the register, singing to herself as she sweeps the floor. Pictures of Pearl eating, Pearl laughing, crying, Pearl dancing by herself, or reading a book beside Rose on the subway.

Rose develops the pictures and becomes less and less surprised when Pearl isn’t there. When the houses are cathedrals and the parks are ornate clubs and drawing rooms from times that even she has not started to remember living.

 **VII.**  
“Do _you_ miss her?” Pierre asks her, almost angry, almost something.

“That hasn’t happened yet,” says Dunyazad, cheerfully swirling the honeyed wine in her glass. “It might never happen. The Shah will pour you another drink."

Pierre nods. He puts his hands to the keys, and instead of the usual numb, easy grace feels a shock of pain like a knife to the fingertips.

 **VIII.**  
There’s a man on the platform, screaming about the apocalypse, with wild eyes and a tattered green coat. No one is even certain if he’s driving the train or waiting for it.


End file.
